Bill C-316: An Act to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act (Court Challenges Program)

Short Title Short title 1 This Act may be cited as the Court Challenges Program Act . 1995, c. 11 Department of Canadian Heritage Act 2 Section 5 of the Department of Canadian Heritage Act is amended by striking out “and” at the end of paragraph (a) and by adding the following after that paragraph: (a.1) establish and implement the program referred to in section 7.1 of this Act and paragraph 43(1)(c) of the Official Languages Act that is administered by an organization independent of the Government of Canada and whose purpose is to provide funding for test cases of national significance to be brought before the courts to clarify and assert constitutional and quasi- constitutional official language rights and constitutional human rights that are guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ; and 3 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 5: Annual report 5.1 (1) The independent organization responsible for administering the program referred to in section 7.1 of this Act and paragraph 43(1)(c) of the Official Languages Act shall, each year, submit to the Minister a report on the administration of the program, in which it shall set out a summary of its organizational activities to demonstrate the impact of its work and provide a transparent picture of the direction, goals and financial performance of the program, as well as an overview of the cases that received funding in the previous year and any outreach and promotional activities that were conducted with groups affected by these cases . Annual report – additional content (1.1) The annual report shall also state, for each of the program’s two components, the number of applications that were denied funding. Tabling in Parliament (2) The Minister shall cause the annual report to be tabled before each House of Parliament on any of the first 15 days on which that House is sitting after the Minister receives the report. Transitional Provision 4 [ Deleted ]